With ever increasing sophistication in available technology, piracy of intellectual property has become widespread. Pirated movies on DVD or VHS often appear concurrently with the first run of the movies in theaters. Making anti-piracy efforts even more difficult, sensing devices which used to be somewhat bulky have become miniaturized, such that their physical presence often escapes detection. These sensing devices such as cameras, microphones, video recorders, and sound recorders can now be embedded in phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), watches, or any other wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) that a manufacturer desires. It has therefore become easier than ever to secrete a sensing device into an event such as a play, movie, and the like.
These sensing devices can record and/or transmit images and sounds that are not authorized to be recorded or transmitted by the individual recording them. Once a scene or a sound has been captured, the sensed data may be easily distributed through a variety of channels, such as a cellular or other wireless communication network.
To combat this piracy, some businesses have attempted to regulate miniaturized sensing devices by either posting restrictions in restricted areas or by physically searching for their existence. However, these methods are often difficult to enforce, ineffective and inefficient.
Currently, watermarks are placed into images and sound recordings after the image or sound source has been captured. One example of this is computer manipulation of captured data which imparts the watermark into the data. Once imparted, these watermarks can subsequently be tracked. Similarly, audio watermarks have been imparted into sound recordings such as that which exist in a theater environment.
Although current watermarking techniques do utilize knowledge about the source data to more effectively embed a watermark into the source data, the source data has generally been a pre-existing file of digitized imagery or sounds emitted that have been captured as sensed data. Therefore, the watermarks that are currently imparted into the source data are imparted by the individuals that have sensed the data with their sensing device. Accordingly, the ability to track these imparted watermarks is hampered by the fact that the imparted watermarks can only be used to track images and sounds that the possessor of the sensed data chooses to be tracked. There does not exist a method for those who own or control the source data in a general area to ensure that a watermark is imparted upon all, or some specific object that may be recorded as data, for tracking prior to a sensing device sensing the source data.
Even having such a method of broadcasting a watermark may not be effective if the prevalent conditions of the area being protected do not allow for optimum broadcast and/or recording of the watermark. In the case of image or video sensing, for example, certain colors or patterns within the sensing area may not be optimal for the inclusion of a watermark. A watermark comprising mostly grays, for example, may not be adequately recorded in a sensing area comprising a gray background. Alternately, a multi-colored watermark intended to remain invisible to the casual observer may end up being too visible when the sensed area comprises a white background.
Therefore, if area conditions change from time to time, a watermark that at one time was optimal, may be less than optimal at another time. For instance, an audio watermark broadcast into a fairly quiet concert hall may become ineffective if the volume of the music is higher than anticipated. Currently, there exists no method or apparatus for creating a dynamic watermark that can be adjusted to the current sensing conditions.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to have a method and apparatus for imparting a watermark into source data before it is sensed such that the owner or controller of the source data can track it once it becomes sensed data. Furthermore, it would be beneficial if a method and apparatus existed that could adjust the broadcast watermarks to current sensing conditions such that the watermarks will be effectively sensed.